Table Of ContentFacilitating Injustice
Facilitating Injustice
The Complicity of Social Workers in the
Forced Removal and Incarceration of
Japanese Americans, 1941–1 946
YOOSUN PARK
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Park, Yoosun, author.
Title: Facilitating injustice : the complicity of social workers in the forced removal and
incarceration of Japanese Americans, 1941–1946 / Yoosun Park.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references. |
Summary: “Social work equivocated. While it did not fully endorse mass removal and incarceration,
neither did it protest, oppose, or explicitly critique government actions. The past should not be judged
by today’s standards; the actions and motivations described here occurred in a period rife with fear and
propaganda. Undergoing a major shift from its private charity roots into its public sector future, social
work bounded with the rest of society into “a patriotic fervor” (Specht & Courtney, 1994, p.ix). The history
presented here is all the more disturbing, however, because it is that of social workers doing what seemed
to them to be more or less right and good. While policies of a government at war, intractable bureaucratic
structures, tangled political alliances, and complex professional obligations, all may have mandated
compliance, it is, nevertheless, difficult to deny that social work and social workers were also willing
participants in the events, informed about and aware of the implications of that compliance. In social
work’s unwillingness to take a resolute stand against the removal and incarceration, the well-intentioned
profession, doing its conscious best to do good, enforced the existing social order and did its level best to
keep the Nikkei from disrupting it. What might social work in the camps have looked like, had it, instead
of urging caution to deflect attention to its work, instead of denying that its work was coddling the Nikkei,
have attempted, at the very least, to challenge the very logic that made—and continues to make—assisting
the needy and caring for the vulnerable, actions to be mistrusted, defended, and justified? What lessons can
today’s social work glean from this history?”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019020540 | ISBN 9780199765058 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190081355 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190081348 (updf)
Subjects: LCSH: Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945. |
Social service—Moral and ethical aspects—United States—History—20th century. |
Social work administration—Moral and ethical aspects—United States—History—20th century. |
United States—Race relations—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC D769.8.A6 P37 2019 | DDC 940.53089/956073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020540
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
To beloved teacher, mentor, and irreplaceable friend, Professor Hideki Anthony
Ishisaka, born in Amache.
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
1. Discursive Elusions 1
2. The Start of War 30
3. The Removal 64
4. Incarceration 119
5. Social Work in the Camps—P art I: Public Assistance 168
6. Social Work in the Camps—P art II: “Abnormal Communities” 202
7. The Emotional Crisis of Registration 249
8. Resettlement— Part I: The Scattering 276
9. Resettlement— Part II: The Work of the Welfare Sections 315
10. Conclusion: The “Value of a Social Work Staff in a Mass
Evacuation Program” 363
Appendix A Glossary of Terms 379
Appendix B WRA Incarceration Camps 385
Appendix C WCCA Station List 387
Appendix D Relocation Offices 397
Appendix E WRA Eligibility for Unrestricted Residence 399
Appendix F WRA Administrative Manual—W elfare 401
Appendix G Job Descriptions 411
Index 425
Preface
An Occluded History
In 1943, Edward J. Ennis, director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Alien Enemy
Control Unit, addressed the Seventieth National Conference of Social Work
on the issue of enemy aliens in that wartime period. He explained that “within
twenty- four hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor 1,000 Japanese aliens had
been apprehended, and within a week a total of 3,000 alien enemies of German,
Italian, and Japanese nationality were in the custody of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service” (1943, p. 291). This initial apprehension of individual
aliens was inaugurated in early December 1941. Within three months, the de-
cision was made for the forced removal and incarceration of an entire popu-
lation. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued executive
order 9066 (3CFR1092- 93), instituting “the greatest planned and controlled
migration in our history: the movement of the American Japanese” (Powell,
1943, p. 301). From the last days of February 1942, when the Nikkei residents
of Terminal Island became the first group forced from their homes, to March
of 1946, when the last of the Relocation Camps was finally closed, the federal
government incarcerated approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry
(Burton, Farrell, Lord, & Lord, 2000; Commission on Wartime Relocation and
Internment of Civilians, 1982; War Relocation Authority, 1946). Two-t hirds of
those interned were U.S.-b orn citizens. The rest were aliens, first- generation
Japanese immigrants who, by the provisions of the 1790 Naturalization Act (1
Stat.103) which limited naturalization rights to “free whites,” could not become
citizens. No other population, alien or citizen, who traced their ancestry to an
enemy nation was subjected to wholesale removal and incarceration. “According
to the War Relocation Authority, it had, at one time or another, 120,313 individ-
uals in custody. It received 111,236 from the Army, 1,118 from Hawaii, 1,735
who were transferred from INS internment camps, 219 ‘voluntary residents’
(mostly individuals who joined families already in camp), and 24 from various
institutions. In addition, 5,981 U.S. citizens were born to incarcerated mothers”
(Daniels, Kitano, & Taylor, 1986, p. 73).
Social workers were involved in every part of the process; they were integral
cogs in the total engine of forced removal and incarceration. Representatives of
